Slocum and the Big Horn Trail

by Jake Logan

  “No. There’s no church up here. No women to talk to. My daughters are in Salt Lake with some of the other sisters.”

  “How many daughters you have?”

  “Two—all the children I had.” She turned up her hands and shook her head, close to tears. “I miss not seeing them grow up.”

  “Do you wish to leave here?”

  She shook her head and looked up shocked. “I am a married woman.”

  He nodded.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “Two men I trusted stole my money. I sold a ranch,” he lied. “Then they robbed me of all the money.”

  “Who are they?” She removed the Dutch oven with a hook to the flat rocks in front of the fireplace and rotated the lid. Then she set it back.

  “A breed called Snake and a black calls himself Tar Boy.”

  She shook her head, indicating that they were unknown to her. “Are they around here?”

  “I’m not sure. But I think they may try to hide here.”

  “They won’t be hard to find. I mean, a black man. How much money did they steal?”

  “Thousands.”

  “You must have had a big ranch.”

  “Yes, it was a big ranch in Montana.”

  “What will you do with the money?”

  “Go someplace where it never snows, like St. David in Arizona Territory.” He waited for her reaction to the name of this Mormon town.

  “They say it is very hot and dry there.”

  “You have people live there?” Maybe she would want to go there—with him.

  She nodded. “My best friend lives there.”

  “Is she happy—” The dogs were barking and he drew his six-gun. “Who is out there?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting anyone.” She looked upset.

  They had already seen his horses. It was near dark. “Invite them in,” he said.

  “But why—”

  He could hear someone shouting above the dogs barking. “Do as I say.”

  Loretta nodded and, skirt in hand, rushed to the door. It was unbarred. She opened it and spoke. “Who’s out there?”

  “Josh Butler, RT outfit—ma’am, my horse went lame and I wondered if I could borrow one of yours. I’ll bring him back—this snow is getting thick.”

  “Know him?” Dog hissed.

  Loretta shook her head. “Must be a new hand.”

  “Invite him in.”

  A frown of disapproval creased her smooth forehead. “He can take a horse and go—”

  “No. He’ll warn them that I am here.”

  “Come in,” she said. “Lands, it is snowing hard.”

  The cowboy came toward the house though Dog could not see him. She stepped back for him to enter.

  “I didn’t mean to bother you,” he said. “I guess your husband rode in—”

  “Hands in the air,” Dog ordered.

  “Wh-what? I didn’t mean nothing. My horse is lame and I just wanted to borrow—”

  “Shut up,” Dog said, and shoved him to a chair. “Get some rope.”

  Loretta obeyed. Dog took his pistol and stuck it in his waistband. Then he tied the stuttering cowboy’s hands behind his back.

  “What’s g-going on here?” he asked.

  Next, Dog bound his feet and secured him to the chair. “I’m looking for a black man stole all my money.”

  “I seed one in G-Graham yesterday.”

  “What did he look like?”

  His prisoner shrugged. “They all look alike.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “J-Josh Nutler. I mean Butler.”

  “He tall?”

  “Very tall.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “Getting supplies for them squaws of his at the store. He’s pretty rich. Got lots of money to spend.”

  “He’s spending my money. He stole it from me.” Red-faced, Dog slammed his fist on the table. “That’s my money.”

  “Oh—”

  “Where’s he at now?”

  “Some cabin west of town.”

  “You ever been there?”

  “No. But he hadn’t ought to be hard to find. Cut me loose and I’ll take you there.”

  “Supper’s on,” Loretta said, and began putting the food on the table.

  Dog nodded to her. Somehow, all this business about his money and that black sumbitch freely spending it had shut down his appetite.

  “We’ll see,” he told his prisoner,

  The salty ham had been smoked and tasted fine. Her biscuits were hot in his fingers. So he let them cool while he reached for the butter.

  “Where you from?” Dog asked his prisoner as he ate the good food. “Before you came here?”

  “Cedar City.”

  Loretta sat across from the prisoner. Dog was between them on the end. He chewed on a bite of hot biscuit, then pointed at him.

  “You and her having an affair?”

  They both blinked at him in disbelief.

  “Too convenient. You said you didn’t know her husband would be here.” He turned to Loretta. “You said you didn’t know him. Hell, you two been having sex.”

  “No,” she screamed, and reached out to cut him with a butcher knife.

  Dog spilled over backward in his chair and tried to draw his six-gun in a tangle of his chair and his legs. Before he could get the .44 clear of his holster, she busted him over the head with a rolling pin and the lights went out.

  23

  Lilly was up and making coffee. The aroma of Bud’s pipe tobacco filled the room. When Slocum threw his legs over the side of the rope bed, he rubbed his dry eyes. The recharged fireplace was driving the cold out of the one-room cabin.

  “Another day,” Bud said, and pointed his pipe at Lilly. “This lady friend of yours ain’t no stranger to cooking either.”

  She smiled at them, busy making biscuits.

  With his calloused hand, Slocum rubbed the back of his own neck. “She’s been spoiling me.”

  “If’n it was in the old days, I’d try and buy her.”

  “You bought a wife?” she asked, and frowned at Bud.

  “Bought several.”

  “They were Indian women,” Slocum said.

  “They were wives,” Bud said, and used his black pipe stem to emphasize his words. “When I was a young buck, I had me a Ute woman. Taught me more about medicines in plants than a doctor knew.”

  “She was older’n you as I recall you saying,” Slocum put in, pulling on his pants.

  Bud laughed. “Yeah, she was. Probably twice my age then. But she was smart—good-looking too. Hell, I was in love with her.”

  “What happened to her?” Lilly asked, greasing the Dutch oven for the biscuits.

  “Couple of Arapaho bucks kilt her in a raid.”

  Lilly winced.

  “I had others, but not a one was smart as she was.”

  “You were a mountain man?”

  “Naw, Lilly, I come too late fur that. Just lived off trapping, hiring out to kill wolves and varmints. I was more Injun than white in them days.”

  “Bud ran away from home when he was eleven.”

  “That young?” She looked surprised.

  “My old man beat me hard one night, and I figured he either wanted me gone or dead. So I up and left. Wasn’t no worse being on me own than there.”

  “Never saw any relatives again?”

  “No.” He relit his pipe and made sucking sounds rebuilding the fire in the bowl.

  “Why live here?” She put the lid on the Dutch oven with a clank, then shoveled red-hot ashes on top.

  “I’m like Slocum. I look over my shoulder a lot. Not so bad anymore. Two or three of them fellars that was after me have gone to the hereafter.” His cackling laughter sounded bright.

  She straightened and then nodded that she understood.

  “Well, you done heard my story, what’s yours?” Bud asked her.

  “When I was eighteen, I married Josh
McCullem and we left Fort Worth the next day for his ranch, as he called it. Our first house was made of posts with a grass roof and a cowhide door. On my twenty-fourth birthday, he moved me into a large hacienda with his cattle-drive money. I have a fine home. If you ever get by there, stop and stay.”

  “How in the blue blazes did you get up here?”

  “We were going home from driving a large herd of cattle to Montana. Josh and his foreman wanted to stop and hunt for elk in the Big Horns. They were murdered, and since then Slocum has been my guide tracking his killers.”

  “What’ll you do after today?”

  “Oh, you mean after we catch the killers? I guess go home and run the ranch.”

  “Yes, after we rouse them out of their hole,” Bud answered.

  “You going along?” Slocum asked him.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for nothing. I got old Betsy oiled and ready. Figure a man can always use a good Spencer rifle backing him up.” Bud bent over in a deep coughing spell, until at last he wiped his mouth on a kerchief and shook his head. “Unless you don’t want me.”

  “We may need an army.” Slocum accepted fresh coffee in a tin cup from Lilly.

  “I doubt that,” she said.

  They left in the new snow that fell the evening before. The packhorse Dunny whined after them from the corral. He didn’t like being left behind, Slocum figured. They reached Graham two hours later and reined up at the store. The sun was melting the snow off the porch roof and water was dripping off the edge.

  Bud nodded, and said he’d go in and find out about the location of the cabin where he thought Tar Boy was staying. Slocum looked around. He could smell the coal smoke coming from the log shed that served as the blacksmith shop. Across the street, the saloon appeared to still be closed.

  In a few minutes, Bud came out with a fistful of peppermint candy sticks and gave two to Lilly and two to Slocum. “It’s about three miles west on that mountain.”

  Slocum nodded and started to rein Bay around. A man in an apron came out on the porch and acknowledged them.

  “That’s Joseph Smith Martin,” Bud said.

  “Mrs. McCullem, and my name’s Slocum,” Slocum said.

  “Good day, ma’am. You’re welcome to stay here.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’ve rode this far, I’ll go with them.”

  “He was alone when he came here?” Slocum asked.

  “Yes,” Martin said, “but he had two Injun women stayed with the horses.” They turned as a rider came in with what looked like a body over a second horse.

  “That’s Josh Butler of the RT outfit,” Martin said with a frown. “Wonder what he’s got.”

  The fresh-faced puncher reined up and nodded to everyone. “This breed back here tried to rustle my horse last night. Figured I better bring his carcass in.”

  “You shoot him?” Martin asked with a frown.

  The cowboy nodded. “Me or him, I figured.”

  “Mind if we look at him?” Slocum asked.

  “I don’t care.”

  He and Bud took the body off the horse and laid it on the ground. They unwrapped it without a word. One look at the dark face and Slocum knew it was Red Dog. He nodded to Bud and did the same to Lilly.

  “You were lucky,” Slocum said to Butler. “He killed her husband. Was there anyone with him?”

  “No. Is there another?”

  “Two more. The one we can’t place is a breed like him, only with a darker complexion and a sharper face.”

  “This one was leading a white horse and saddle, but wasn’t no other I could see.”

  “That sounded like his partner Snake’s horse all right.” Slocum wished he had more information. Were both breeds dead? He might never learn.

  “I’ll make you a check for the reward I offered,” Lilly said, and dismounted.

  Butler swept off his hat, looking taken aback. “I figured he was bad, but I never expected a reward, ma’am.”

  “Turned out to be your day,” Slocum said, still thinking about the riderless white horse. Had Snake got himself killed? He glanced at the mountain. Tar Boy was still up there on his guard.

  With a pencil, she made out a check to Butler on her saddle seat and handed it to him.

  “Why, that’s ten months’ wages—” He blinked in disbelief at her, and then back at the check.

  “What you going to do with it?” Martin asked.

  “Leave this country. I’ve got me a gal in mind.” He waved the check. “I may try my luck with her in a warmer climate.”

  “Good luck,” Lilly said.

  ‘Oh, one more thing,” Slocum said. “You’ve got to worry about planting him too.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Good,” Slocum said, and then looked at the other two. “Mount up. Daylight’s burning.”

  “Yes, Mr. Boss,” she said, and smiled with a wink at Bud.

  They followed the untracked ruts under the snow, headed uphill through the juniper, and soon reached the pines. In an hour, Slocum could see a column of smoke and held up his hand.

  “From here on we need to be extra careful. He might be real on edge without those other two.”

  “I can skirt the mountain and come in from the north,” Bud said, waving his Spencer in that direction.

  “Good. We can give you a while to get around there.”

  “You can go up closer. There is a basin, a meadow this side of the cabin. I figure you can stay in the timber on this side out of sight up there.”

  “See you in a while,” Lilly said.

  “Durn right, girl,” Bud said, and headed north through the pines.

  She pushed the goatskin gloves down on her fingers. “I’m glad this is about over. But I can’t say I want to part with you.”

  He nodded as they pushed up to the rim of the flats. “Shooting starts, you take cover.”

  “I understand. You wouldn’t consider being Tom White and running my ranch?”

  “Lilly, your offer makes me want to try. But I’m a realist. They’d come for me. Slip of a lip in some bar. ‘I seen Slocum.’ They’d come.”

  “Oh, Slocum—”

  He put his fingers to his mouth to silence her. Across on the far side of the meadow, a woman was running from the trees. Her fringe waved as she flew over a post-rail fence and started toward them.

  “Who is she?”

  He jerked out his Winchester and levered in a cartridge. “Her name’s Easter.”

  “The woman from the cabin?”

  “That’s her.”

  Dismounted, he used a tree to rest the rifle against as he watched her run as hard as she could, looking back from time to time.

  “Tell me if you see anyone coming after her.” He resumed sighting down the rifle barrel.

  He could hear Easter’s heavy breathing as Lilly went to the edge of the trees and waved Easter toward them. She about collapsed on her knees when she saw Slocum.

  “He’s got traps set for you,” she said, out of breath, and collapsed on the snow. Lilly comforted her as Slocum nodded and went for his horse.

  “Be careful,” Easter said after him, still out of breath.

  He paused. “Red Dog is dead.”

  She nodded. “Snake went to stop him.”

  Slocum nodded. “He must have killed Snake then.” He raised his gaze to the smoke column. “Who else is over there?”

  “Mia.”

  “Red Dog’s woman?”

  “Yes. She’s with Tar Boy.”

  Slocum booted Bay out in the meadow and short-loped him for the gate in the fence. He looked all around before he dismounted and shoved the bars aside. The skin on his neck itched when he remounted and set the Bay on up the path.

  In sight of the cabin, he stepped down and left Bay ground-tied. Nothing moved at the cabin. He took off his right glove, shed his jumper, and hung it on the saddle horn. In case he needed to move fast, the coat would only hinder him.

  He advanced, using a shed first to shelter him
in case Tar Boy stepped out to shoot at him. The cabin door remained unopened. At last he reached an outhouse, and could see the cabin door from the side of the structure.

  “Tar Boy! Throw out your gun and come out,” he shouted.

  “That be you, Tom White?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Red Dog always said we should have kilt yeah.”

  “He’s dead. A puncher killed him yesterday trying to steal his horse.”

  “Snake?”

  “I think Red Dog killed him. That puncher said Dog was leading a white horse with an empty saddle.”

  “Sumbitch was like a weasel.”

  “He was. Throw out your gun and come out.”

  “What fur? They going hang me sure as shit, ain’t they?”

  “Be a trial.”

  “Now what chance a black man have at a Wyoming trial?” Tar Boy laughed.

  “I ain’t the law.”

  “What you say I give you all this money and I go on my way?”

  “That’s Mrs. McCullem’s money.”

  “You could give it to her and she’d never know.”

  “I ain’t cutting no deals.” Overhead, a magpie landed in a pine bough and the snowflakes fell in a shower. The wet snow dampened Slocum’s face while filtering by.

  “I figured we done killed you that night. But you got away. My, my, Tom White, you done living a second life now, maybe more.”

  “Time’s up, Tar Boy.”

  The door burst open and Slocum saw the smoke coming from a rifle muzzle as the black man’s large form filled the doorway. Slocum took aim, and his first bullet made Tar Boy hesitate in his stride and drop the rifle. Shot number two made him flinch again as he fought to draw his pistol. The third round buckled his knees, and Tar Boy sprawled facedown in the snow.

  Slocum let the rifle down and exhaled. He looked up in time to Mia aiming at him. Then a shot rang out and she dropped the rifle. Hit hard, she slowly sank to the ground. Her rifle rattled, striking the ground ahead of her.

  At the corner of the cabin, Bud sat his pony and the smoking rifle butt was still on his shoulder.

  “That’s all of them,” Slocum said, and nodded at Bud. “Thanks.”

  Slocum crossed the yard and kicked away the handgun in Tar Boy’s grip. Then he stepped over Mia’s crumpled form, and the first thing he saw on the table inside were piles of gold coins. Even in the shadowy cabin, they shone.